Penelope's Pregnancy Test Recognition
by hokie3457
Summary: Inspired by episode 7.06. Spoiler!


**A/N: Thought I would jump on the bandwagon. Episode 7.06 was so funny and so great...I hope you enjoy. Review if you like!**

Penelope's Test Recognition.

Her mind drifted as she sat waiting for the results. One thing she didn't feel was the panic she had in the past when this sort of thing happened. If the test was positive, she knew that they would figure things out together. Leonard was so, so different from every other man she had ever dated. She knew that he would stand by her. He would not cut and run.

Not that she wanted to be pregnant. She was in no way ready for motherhood, marriage and all the other serious life changing eventualities that come with both of those occurrences. She thought of her parents. How disappointed they would be. Maybe not so much once they got to know Leonard. She smiled when she thought about how much her father would like him. Someone that would always take care of her.

Her father and Leonard would get along perfectly. This she knew in her heart of hearts. Leonard got along with nearly everyone. If only he had the confidence to know this fact; that he didn't need to try as hard as he did sometimes. Many people gravitated to him. Sheldon, Howard and Raj. They all looked to him as their unofficial leader. She had noticed the few time she accompanied him to conferences when he would lecture, afterward he was always more inundated that the other speakers. So many questions, and he always stayed and answered them all. He had a way of putting people at ease, focusing attention back on them and away from himself. It made people want to talk to him; to seek him out.

Leonard. She knew him for two and a half years. They had lived across the hall from each other. She had found him interesting from that very first day. How he began to explain what was on his white board in the apartment. How she had made him blush when she couldn't figure out how to use their shower-she was wearing only a towel (she had always thought it fortunate that shower was briefly out-of-order). Most unbelievable was how he and Sheldon didn't hesitate to go to Kurt to try and get her television from him, coming back without pants from the bully.

From that first day, Leonard had always been someone that would look out for her. Someone she could talk with at ease. The person she would look for to tell any sort of exciting news, be it an audition, a new song she had heard on the radio or a silly joke that she would find hilarious, him not so much but he would laugh just the same.

Then, they had begun to grow closer. She smiled when she though of their first date, even though he said it wasn't a date. How the simple demonstration of an olive revolving around a glass enthralled her, until it spun out and under the table, causing him to give himself a nasty gash on his head.

Their second date was more formal. When they spoke of it now, she called it 'the Schrödinger's cat date'. After that night, she feared that she wasn't intelligent enough for him. What on earth would he want to talk to her about? She stepped aside and had to watch in sadness as he dated that red-headed doctor-Stephanie. Even though it was only a short time, her heart broke more than a little. Then he went away for three months with Raj, Sheldon and Howard. Three months away, to of all places, the North Pole. Three months away from him, without any contact from him. None.

When he returned and she saw him for the first time, she jumped him and nearly devoured him with a passion she had never felt before. The togetherness on his return was at first tentative, awkward even; they even thought of not continuing. Thank god for that 'one last kiss' at the door. She laughed out loud thinking about her broken bed.

Several months later, that brought her to where she was now. Sitting on her bed waiting. Waiting for what would come next. Just then, she was shaken out of her thoughts by the ring of the timer on her cell phone. The answer was there ready for her. She took a deep breath and picked up the stick. Turning it over she saw it was negative. Not pregnant. No baby with Leonard.

Tears formed in her eyes. She was not sure if they were tears of relief or of sadness. She blankly stood up from her bed and walked out into the living room and continued into the kitchen. Opening a drawer, she pulled out a sandwich bag and placed the stick inside, sealing the bag as she walked back to her bedroom. Reaching up to the shelf she found the box easily. It was a box that had contained her furry Ugg boots. Moving the contents around, she found a home for the baggy. Smiling she looked through the receipts from restaurants, stores and the movie theater stubs and all the other mementos of their brief time together. Taking up most of the room was the rubber duck. She laughed out loud at it. It came with the adhesive ducks he had bought her for her tub after she had slipped and needed help from Sheldon of all people to get to the emergency room.

Exhaling with a laugh she noted that she would need to be getting a larger box soon. This was the second version. She had originally used a regular shoe box and had filled it quickly. She placed the lid back on and returned the box to the shelf. She looked up at it and smiled. She reached out her hand and touched the box and said out loud. "If you only knew how much you mean to me Leonard Hofstadter." She bit her lip as she thought about that word. That one, four-letter, devastating, make it or break it word.


End file.
